Alumni

I constantly brag to my coworkers, graduates of some of the top schools in the nation, about the incredible environment in which I was educated. While MC’s physics program is small, my professors cared about their students’ success, all possessed a Ph.D., and were committed to their faith in Jesus Christ. I never felt like I was just a number. Because they knew my goals and personality, they recommended the Navy’s Nuclear Program to me…and helped me prepare for and get selected as a Nuclear Power School Instructor. The professors at MC are directly responsible for and continue to encourage my success in academics, my career, and life even after graduating.”

While some disciplines require memorization of large swaths of information, physics teaches the critical thinking and research skills that lead to solutions to novel problems. The MC faculty encouraged me to stretch; this has led to many adventures in creativity and pioneering. In my work at a national laboratory, every day is different. New and stimulating projects, both applied and fundamental, are always presenting themselves.”

The educational experience I remember most is when Dr. Bill Nettles accompanied me to Vanderbilt University over a Christmas break so that we could perform research for my honors paper in nuclear physics. That research experience was not at all like the well-choreographed laboratory experiments that accompany a first-year physics course…Many of the skills I utilize almost daily had their genesis at Mississippi College. Whether your choice is academia or industry, the core physics courses taught at MC should be good preparation for future challenges.”

Understanding the fundamentals of system performance at a physics level has always been of great value for me in my work assessing and predicting the performance of weapon systems and advanced technologies. The ‘physics level model’ is always the holy grail of system simulation, and drives the derivative statistical models that we use extensively in real-time and battlefield simulations. Likewise, the rigors of experimental process that were integral to our physics labs and reporting have allowed me to design and execute highly complex experiments involving thousands of simulated and live entities to produce system-of-systems analysis of future combat.”